Bethany’s smile was soft. “Because I watched my brother deny his homosexuality for too many years. When he committed suicide three years ago because of the resulting depression, I swore I wouldn’t let anyone I knew and cared for deny that part of themselves again.”
Silence stretched for a long moment. Chris stared at his assistant, unsure what to say. Christ, unsure what to do.
How could she say something so fucking significant, so goddamn important with such relaxed calm?
“Bloody hell, love.”
He swung his stare to Liev, the Australian’s muttered response echoing his shock.
Liev frowned at her, his blue eyes serious. “He never came out?”
Bethany shook her head. “Strict parents. Very strict. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Mom use the word sex. She calls it ‘naughties’. Neither Adam or I were allowed to date for fear of us being corrupted by the decay of sexual pressure, so you could imagine how they would have reacted to Adam’s sexuality.”
Chris swallowed. A rational part of his mind told him he needed to do something about still being naked.
Quickly scanning the area, he sought out his discarded Speedo. It was nowhere in sight.
“Here you go, Mr. Huntley.”
He jumped at his personal assistant’s calm voice, swinging back to find her holding out a towel, a small smile on her lips.
He took it, his mouth dry.
Liev’s words were only now beginning to sink into his reeling brain.
Came out.
The words had sounded so matter-of-fact on the Australian’s tongue, but as they whispered through Chris’s head now, his heart smashed fast in his chest.
Came out. Coming out.
“Are you going to wrap yourself in that, Mr. Huntley? Or sit there looking petrified?”
The gentle, mocking tone in Bethany’s voice made him scowl.
“Think you might be needing those floaties now, Chris?”
Chris shot Liev a dark frown. “I thought I was the funny guy in the room?”
Liev’s smile was wry. “You are. I’m just the hired muscle. But I’ve been out of the closet for a long time. I didn’t just deflate the floaties, I shredded them.”
Chris’s heart smashed fast into his dry, tight throat. “Come out of a closet? How the fuck do I come out of a closet when I didn’t realized I was in one?”
“Is that really what you’re worried about?” Bethany asked.
Chris let out a ragged breath, propelling himself off the sun lounger to wrap the towel around his hips. He walked to the pool’s edge, glaring at the glistening blue water.
“How does one in my line of work do that?” he asked without turning. “Come out? More to the point, is that really what I want to do? Reveal it all so soon? Jesus, my cock is only just getting dry from its first blowjob from a man. Isn’t it premature to crow about my sexual preference to the masses? Besides all that, I’m heading back to L.A. in a little over twenty-four hours. Come out of the closet? I may not even need a closet to hide in when I get home. What if I go back to L.A. and I’m not…what if I don’t…fuck, what if I go back to L.A. and I only want to have sex with women? Like I did before I came here?”
He stopped and scraped his hands over his face. His gut churned, the heavy itch on the back of his neck telling him Liev and Bethany were watching him. He swiped at his mouth with a shaky hand. The second he left Liev Reynolds in Sydney he may well go back to the person he was before he arrived here—a heterosexual, money-spinning, award-winning, joke-cracking sex symbol about to shoot into the action-star stratosphere. Attracted to sexy, feminine women.
“No one’s saying you have to come out of anything,” Liev’s deep voice rumbled behind him.
He shot Liev a quick look over his shoulder. The man sat on the sun lounger, black boxer briefs once again hugging his hips and groin. When had he put them back on? Did it matter?
“So what?” Chris asked with a shrug. “We fuck. We exchange phone numbers and I leave? Is that it?”
It was Liev’s turn to shrug. “It makes sense.”
Cold anger shot through Chris. Icy shards of rage sliced at his soul. “It makes sense? Fuck it makes sense. None of this makes sense. I rocked up to Australia a guy who fucked women and now I’m a…a…fuck, I don’t even know what I am anymore and it’s because of you and you’re okay with never seeing me again? Fuck that. Fuck you.”
Liev’s chuckle surprised him. The man pushed himself from the sun lounger and strode toward him. “You fucking me is exactly what I have in mind, Chris. And me fucking you. In fact, I’d hazard a guess I’ve thought little of anything but me fucking you and you fucking me, but here we come back to the need for floaties again. Because after just one blowjob, you’re thinking about telling the world, and I’m thinking this man can’t wreck his career over just one blowjob.”
The churning knot in Chris’s gut reached for his heart. “It was more than just one blowjob, Reynolds.”
The man had the audacity to chuckle again. “Okay, two blowjobs. One a piece.”
Chris narrowed his eyes. “That’s not what I meant. It wasn’t just a blowjob. It was…” He stopped. Swallowed.
Was he just about to say what he thought he was? Before even trying to return to his old life?
Sure, he was the first to admit he’d never truly felt fulfilled back then. Honestly, he’d just been going through the motions with a mechanical sense of disconnection for years, but that didn’t mean he was ready to go on Letterman and tell the world, did it?
Did it?
He had no fucking clue what was going to happen when he returned to La-La Land, but surely he had to try?
Bullshit. You know exactly what is going to happen. Before you go home. You’re going to ask Liev to go with you. You knew that the moment you took his amazing, beautiful cock in your hands and sank to your knees in front of him.
“What was it, Chris?” Liev’s gaze roamed his face, his nostrils flaring. “Tell me. Before I do the sane thing and walk away, leaving your career inta—”
Chris shut him up with a kiss.
He didn’t hold back. Fuck that. Liev Reynolds had awakened him to an existence he hadn’t imagined possible and now didn’t want to live without. Holding back with this guy was never going to be an option again. He’d lived his life a lie until Liev had entered it. There wasn’t a freaking hope in hell he was letting him walk away, no matter how insane Liev—or the world—considered it.
The world could go fuck itself. The world didn’t have to know. It was none of the world’s business.
This was between Chris and Liev, and Chris wasn’t letting Liev get away. He wasn’t.
He thrust his tongue into Liev’s mouth, stroking the wet well with feverish lashes. Liev returned the kiss with equal ferocity, grabbing Chris’s ass and hauling their hips together. Their cocks rubbed together, the exquisitely painful contact sending a blast of heat through Chris’s core. He groaned, snaring a fistful of hair at Liev’s nape at the same time as he captured one of Liev’s nipples and pinched.
The man bucked, his stiffening shaft grinding harder to Chris’s erection. Christ, he’d never recovered so quickly from an orgasm like he had tonight. That told him something. Told him the man tongue-fucking his mouth, mauling his ass cheeks was not just a sexual partner. Liev was the sexual partner. The one Chris was meant to be with. The only one.
More than once, Rowan had mentioned her whole body knew the second she saw Aslin that he was the one. She’d also told Chris—usually with a self-deprecating grimace—she’d spent a stupid amount of time fighting that knowledge, sure she knew better than her heart, her body and her soul. She’d told Chris on the day she’d married the British mountain of muscle that the minute she stopped fighting she’d felt like she was finally seeing the world, like she’d been asleep and was now awake. That everything was beautiful in its clarity.
He’d laughed at her and told her he’d always known she was a corny
romantic, even if she could break a man’s clavicle with a karate chop.
She’d threatened to break his clavicle if he called her corny again, kissed him and told him she hoped one day he found the same clarity.
He’d waved her off, grabbed the closest bridesmaid and spent the rest of the wedding seducing the panties off her—as all good heterosexual, sitcom-star sex symbols are supposed to.
And now here he was, experiencing that moment of clarity Rowie had spoken about with such contented joy.
Clarity. No longer confused. Accepting. No longer fighting against the undeniable.
Fuck, it felt so goddamn right.
He pinched Liev’s nipple again, loving the way the man groaned at the pressure, the way his hips thrust forward. His cock pulsed against Chris’s. He bit at the fleshy fullness of Liev’s bottom lip, sucking the wound better with growing urgency.
Liev dug his fingers harder into Chris’s ass cheeks, a shudder vibrating through his hard body. “Fuck a bloody duck, Huntley,” he growled, his lips sliding over Chris’s parted ones on every word. “I can’t believe I’m ready to blow my load again so soon.”
With a chuckle, Chris scraped his hand down Liev’s torso, shifting just enough to allow his fingers access to the man’s engorged cock. He squeezed it, smearing the moisture beading on its tip with the pad of his thumb. “I can’t believe you thought you were going to walk away from me.”
Liev caught Chris’s bottom lip with a quick nip as he rolled his hips, thrusting his shaft upward in Chris’s snug grip. “It was an empty bluff.”
Chris laughed. He scored a line of kisses along the man’s square jaw, up to his ear before closing his lips over Liev’s earlobe and giving a little suck. “I’m irresistible, just ask Vanity Fair.” He flicked his tongue into the shallow well of Liev’s ear. “People Magazine.” He squeezed the throbbing cock in his hand. “Oprah.”
In response to his boast, Liev groaned, his head lolling back. Chris flicked his tongue over the lump of his Adam’s apple.
A raw sound escaped Liev, carnal and thick with intention. It was the only warning Chris got.
Liev spun him around in a blur of air and colours. Strong fingers dug into Chris’s hips with brutal force, holding him motionless for a split second before Liev’s body flattened to Chris’s back. The man’s massive erection filled the shallow crevice between Chris’s ass cheeks, his hands snaring Chris’s cock and balls. Fresh heat blasted through Chris. His heart hammered. His breath caught in his throat. Unable to stop himself, he wriggled his ass, wanting to feel that steely length of flesh closer to his untouched entrance.
Fuck, not just wanting to feel it there. Needing it.
Hot lips pressed to Chris’s ear, Liev’s teeth catching Chris’s earlobe. “You have no clue how much I want to sink my dick balls deep into your arse, Chris.” He choked Chris’s cock in a slow up-and-down stroke, his other hand kneading Chris’s scrotum with steady force. “But I’m not taking your floaties off yet.”
Chris drove his ass harder to Liev’s cock, his chest tight. “Fuck the floaties. I’ll let you do CPR on me after.”
Liev chuckled, the sound sending new blood into Chris’s already aching erection. “I love your bravado, Huntley. And I know the client’s wishes are always meant to be followed, but for now, I’m going to guard your body my way.”
And with that, he twisted Chris to face him once again, brutalized his mouth in a kiss beyond hungry and then stepped backward, out of Chris’s arms.
He stared at Chris, his chest heaving, his nostrils flaring. “I’m taking this inside, Bethany.” Chris started at his personal assistant’s name. Jesus, he’d forgotten she was even here. “You coming?”
Chris swallowed. His gaze jerked to the smiling redhead perched on the wicker armchair beside them. Only a few days ago, he’d blamed her for his body’s sexual response to Liev. He’d fancied himself attracted to her. Had entertained the idea of a threesome with her and some nameless flight attendant. And now he knew touching her, being touched by her would be a lie.
He wanted only Liev’s flesh on his body, in his body. He wanted only—
“My work here is done.” Bethany’s calm proclamation stilled Chris’s heart. She grinned at him. “I’m going to catch a cab into town. Diesel’s personal assistant asked me to meet him for coffee when I was off the clock.” Her grin morphed into a playful smirk. “And trust me, I am very much off the clock now.” She rose to her feet and walked past them. “See you both for a late breakfast,” she tossed over her shoulder as she disappeared into the shadows. “Remember you have a ten a.m. appearance, Mr. Huntley.”
Chris returned his stare to Liev. His heart smashed in his ears. His gut knotted. They were alone.
Holy crap, they were alone, and he’d never felt so nervous and yet so ready to be fucked.
He swallowed, aching for the touch of Liev’s hands on his body. Craving it.
“What happens now?” he asked, his nerve endings on fire.
Liev’s lips curled into a slow smile. “We move to your bedroom. Now.”
Chapter Eleven
Taking it slow was going to be tricky. Bloody tricky. But for Chris’s sake—hell, for his own sake—that’s exactly what Liev needed to do.
He followed Chris into the house and up the stairs to the third floor. It would be easy for him to take the American’s hand and walk him to his bedroom, but Liev let Chris lead.
If Chris was to back out, Liev wanted to let him have the chance to do it with dignity, not tug at Liev’s hand as he faltered behind.
God, please don’t let him back out.
He watched the younger man’s back, letting his gaze devour the sculpted muscles and smooth skin.
There was a part of Liev that couldn’t believe this was happening. A tiny voice that whispered in his head that Chris Huntley, one of the sexiest men alive, a man of phenomenal success and famous good humour, was not interested in Liev. That tiny voice told Liev he’d been knocked out in a house fire and was lying in a hospital room in a coma. That had to be the only explanation for what was happening now. There wasn’t a bloody hope in hell Chris Huntley could be attracted to a simple firefighter-cum-bodyguard whose greatest claim to fame was once stopping a protester from hitting the Prime Minister of Australia with a thrown shoe.
Liev listened to that tiny voice, the thick lump in his throat rivaling the thick heat in his groin, and continued to follow Chris up the stairs.
This wasn’t a coma-induced fantasy. This was real. Chris Huntley was sexually attracted to him and, God help him, was leading him to the master bedroom.
A tight spasm claimed Liev’s cock at the thought. He ached for what was to come, despite the tiny voice telling him he was deluded.
At the top of the stairs, Chris turned. His startling blue eyes found Liev’s and Liev was almost overcome by the unwavering desire and trust in their depths.
Bloody hell, he was never going to recover from this. How did a simple man like himself recover from a night of passion with a god like Chris?
Pulling a slow breath through his nose, he drew level with Chris. “There are things I need to get from my bedroom.”
Chris’s Adam’s apple jerked up and down in the strong column of his throat. “Okay.”
Unable to stop himself, Liev lifted his hand and cupped Chris’s jaw, brushing his thumb over the man’s bottom lip. “Remember, you’re wearing floaties. I’m not going to shove you under the water. And all you need to do is tell me to stop and I—”
Chris chuckled. “Hurry the fuck up, Reynolds. Before I drag you into my room, throw you on the bed and go all method acting on your ass. I’ve watched Brokeback Mountain. Twice.”
The threat tugged a laugh from Liev. He rolled his eyes. “Twice. Then you’re an expert.”
Before Chris could respond, Liev spun on his heel and entered his own bedroom. In his overnight bag was a pre-lubricated condom. He wasn’t yet sure it would be needed, but he wanted to be prepared. In
case the unbelievable really did happen.
Do you really think it will tonight? Do you really think, when you press the head of your cock to Chris’s arse, he’s going to let you penetrate him? Are you that deluded? He’ll realize what’s about to happen and—
Shutting out the voice hell-bent on destroying his hope, Liev retrieved the square foil packet from his bag. He closed his fist around it. What it represented was almost too surreal to contemplate.
A turbulent wave of disbelief rolled through him. He turned and stared at his reflection in the room’s mirror. This was a first for him. He’d never doubted himself prior to having sex before. Had never been nervous prior to fucking before. Sex was just pleasure and pleasure was there to be had. Hell, it wasn’t like he’d never had sex with a virgin before either. He’d been more than one man’s first. He enjoyed it. Guiding them through the previously unknown experiences of man-on-man sex turned him on just as much as the actual act itself. He’d never been nervous with any of those partners, but holy snapping duck shit, was he nervous now.
Was it Chris’s fame? Or something else?
A whisper deep in his soul told him the answer, but he refused to acknowledge it. He didn’t do forever. He didn’t do love.
Just like all his previous lovers, Chris Huntley was a passion that had an ending. It was just… Liev swallowed, studying his own face in the glass.
Liev didn’t want to think about that ending, because when he did, he saw a new fantasy that was even more unrealistic and painful to contemplate than the fantasy of making love to Chris. A fantasy of being with Chris, beside Chris, in Chris’s life for a long time. A fantasy of a forever Liev had never ever let himself believe he wanted.
The knot in Liev’s gut twisted. His heart thumped.
Falling in love was not part of his plan. “You have to remember that,” he muttered.
“Remember what?”
Liev swung to his right to stare at Chris.
The actor smiled at him. “I couldn’t wait.” He nodded toward the bed beside him. “And I came prepared.”
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